That’s no longer a theoretical question. With regulators raising expectations around cyber resilience, and insurers scrutinising risk profiles in more detail than ever, the visibility gap between what’s inside your perimeter and what’s already “out there” is becoming harder to ignore.
This isn’t about trying to monitor the entire Dark Web. It’s about knowing what matters and building that visibility into your operational approach to risk.
Dark Web exposure sits at the intersection of threat intelligence, cyber governance, and incident response – yet it’s often unclear who owns it. Is it a SOC function? A risk team concern? A board-level topic?
In reality, it’s all of the above. And it needs to be treated accordingly.
This means:
For CIOs, the priority is creating the feedback loop between what’s visible externally and what’s being prioritised internally.
One of the most practical ways to manage Dark Web risk is to see exposure data as a strategic input – not just a threat feed. When used well, this intelligence can support:
Understanding how exposed identities or assets could be used in a compromise
Focusing controls and tooling where real-world exposure exists
Validating that partners are not introducing unseen risk
Preparing for scenarios based on actual adversary interest
It shifts the conversation from the hypothetical “what if we’re targeted?” to the data-led “what evidence is there that we already are?”
Managing Dark Web exposure is not a one-off activity. It requires an operational model that recognises exposure is dynamic; credentials are continually leaked, suppliers suffer breaches, systems change and attacker interest evolves.
That doesn’t mean building a team of always on Dark Web analysts – few companies can afford that. But it does mean establishing a rhythm that fits your risk appetite, such as:
The goal is to normalise external visibility as part of your broader cyber programme, not treat it as an edge case or emerging risk.
At a minimum, you’d expect standard reporting on what’s been exposed, whether it’s been contained, and how quickly action was taken. These are essential hygiene metrics and part of any mature cyber programme.
But effective Dark Web reporting can, and should, go further. The real value comes from the additional layers of insight that help you:
By looking at these areas, you can confirm not just that controls are working, where they’re being tested, and where the organisation is exposed in ways traditional tools may not see.
Managing Dark Web risk isn’t about chasing shadows. It’s about listening for signals – data points that suggest exposure, targeting, or intent -Dand feeding those signals into the right conversations.
For senior technology leaders, it’s a way to close a crucial visibility gap, support better decisions and stay ahead of adversaries who are already doing their research. Because in today’s threat landscape, being unaware is not the same as being unaffected.
Head of Security Services
Not all change is progress.
Over the past 18 months, parts of the IT industry have been quietly rewriting the commercial rulebook. Several major vendors have shifted from perpetual licences to multi-year subscriptions, often accompanied by steep price rises and rigid terms.
The Procurement Act 2023 marks a fundamental shift in UK public procurement, replacing broad principles with a new regime of prescriptive transparency. For contracting authorities managing parts of the UK’s £385 billion annual public spend, this legislation introduces a series of legally mandated, data-intensive reporting obligations.
From NHS ransomware attacks to the Royal Mail being frozen out of global operations, cyber threats are no longer theoretical – they’re national disruptions. As attacks grow more targeted, stealthy, and sophisticated, the UK Government is taking a bold step to plug the legislative gaps and put resilience on the boardroom agenda.
It may come as a surprise, but most cyberattacks don’t happen at 10 am on a Tuesday.
More often, they happen when your teams are offline: when your SOC is running on minimal staffing, when an alert gets buried under hundreds of others.
AI adoption in IT is not uniform. The most advanced tools often require significant investment in licensing, infrastructure and integration. As a result, access to AI capabilities is often dictated by budget, not just technical readiness and expertise.
Like many industries and sectors, AI and automation are already changing the structure of IT teams. Routine operational work that used to be handled by junior engineers is increasingly carried out by intelligent systems. That work hasn’t disappeared, it’s just being done without human involvement.
The cyber threat landscape has shifted. Fast.
That means the traditional SOC, reliant on manual triage and static rule sets, is falling behind.
Enter the AI-powered SOC. Not just a nice-to-have, instead a necessary evolution in how we approach cyber defence.
Most organisations expect attacks to come from the outside: a malicious payload, a phishing email, a brute-force attempt at the firewall. But in many cases, the foundations of those attacks were laid weeks or months earlier – quietly, invisibly – through data already circulating on the dark web.
The pace of technological change in IT has never been faster, but it’s becoming a double-edged sword. With businesses racing to unlock the benefits of AI, automation and cloud-native architectures, the gap between the art of the possible and the skillsets on the ground is growing.